If you can’t find perfect gift, write a book

To kill time during a long road trip last summer with his sister and her daughter, Joshua Longley of Halifax made up a story for his niece. He’s turned it into a book that will be his niece’s Christmas gift from him this year. (JEFF HARPER)

Joshua Longley took a spontaneous story told to his niece and turned it into a 240-page children’s novel and one heck of a Christmas gift.

A Halifax systems administrator, Longley was driving with his niece and sister last summer after a family gathering when he and young Madeleine Khan started making up a story, which they do often.

"It sort of grew with a couple of emails back and forth, playing with it, and then one day I decided to just sit down and write it," he said of Barnaby’s Buccaneers.

The story, available online through Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Indigo, was not quite as silly as the other ones they made up, he said. Out of the initial storytelling, he was able to come up with some place names and a vague concept "and I just grew it from there," Longley said.

The story is about a 10-year-old girl who goes to summer camp. It details the adventures she and her friends have while trying save the camp from a multinational conglomerate that wants to buy the property and turn it into a tourist hotel. Longley had Madeleine draw a map of the camp as she imagined it, and used that as his guide when writing the book.

It’s no coincidence that the protagonist and Longley’s niece have the same first name. He based the character on her "as closely as possible."

"It’s more of a doting uncle’s idealized version."

Although Longley self-published the book in October, his niece doesn’t know about it. She’ll find it under the tree on Christmas morning.

He has kept the book quiet since it was finished "basically just by keeping my mouth shut," he said.

"Unless a book is in front of someone, they’re not going to be aware of it. It’s basically the worst marketing strategy ever."

He also has the original cover art framed as part of the gift.

Longley has already started a second book. He believes it could become a series because he kept coming up with ideas while writing Barnaby’s Buccaneers that didn’t really fit into the book.